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Giants fans are mostly great but their obsession with LA is not their finest quality, to say the least.

While it's certainly possible to maintain a healthy rivalry - and the actions of a couple lunatics can't be blamed on the fan-base as a whole - there is clearly some element of this that bubbles up from the general hatred expressed toward the Dodgers and their fans. There's no point in assigning a mote of blame to the average fan, but you do have to wonder if people might take the aggregation of events like this as a sign that it might be better to dial things down a bit?

The amount of anti-LA vitriol expressed at games involving other teams has led me to avoid ever going to a Giants-Dodgers game. In some ways it feels more vindictive and aggressive than even the Red Sox/Yankees stuff. "Yankees Suck" chants never struck me as inciting bad behavior in quite the same way that I get from the SF stuff. Which is crazy because other than this people in SF (and Giants fans in particular) are so low-key and awesome.

Giants fans are mostly great but their obsession with LA is not their finest quality, to say the least.

It has been that way for a good long while. I was at a Dodgers-Giants game at Candlestick in the 1970's where a Dodger fan had the temerity to wear a Dodger cap and end up sitting in an otherwise Giants' section of the upper deck. After some words one of the Giants' "fans" grabbed the cap and flung it towards the field. It was touch and go whether or not the Dodgers' fan would get himself tossed out after the cap. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the Dodgers' fan went somewhere else to watch the game.

I don't think this has anything to do with baseball rivalries and everything to do with people looking for a fight. The alleged attackers were not at the game, and were armed. If the Dodger gear hadn't irritated them, something else probably would have and probably has in the past.

My GF and I were at the game last night (SFSU alumni night and she's a grad), sitting way up in the "view reserve" seats, which basically gave us no view of the game but a pretty good view of the folks in the stands and especially the bleacher area. Seemed like there was a lot of chanting and stuff, but it mostly seemed friendly, and not that out of the ordinary (I've gotten much worse wearing a Cardinals jersey to a game in LA). On one occasion I was in line for a beer and saw a group of 3 young girls who were shouting \"#### the dodgers" on one the concourses, and they got escorted out by the ushers. We also saw two fights in the bleachers, no idea who caused them or what it was about, but that seemed unusual.

One thing to note, there were also a bunch of idiot Dodgers fans doing what they could to start stuff (running from section to section waving a flag, etc). That mostly elicited booing, but I did see some plastic beer bottles thrown by idiot Giants fans.

I've lived all my life in the Bay Area, always with relatives in Southern California. I assure you this has been my experience.

Northern Californians do this generally, but San Franciscans do it in particular: they insist that everything about LA and Southern California is inferior. The smog, and the traffic, of course, but more generally the culture. LA people are superficial, shallow, tasteless, not nearly as deep-thinking and sophisticated as we.

as a frequent visitor to both of those cities (mainly work purposes) that's my observation as well. LA's rival in citydom is NYC and NYC only. Northern Californians definitely never fail to take a shot at SoCal whenever possible.

I've lived all my life in the Bay Area, always with relatives in Southern California. I assure you this has been my experience.

Northern Californians do this generally, but San Franciscans do it in particular: they insist that everything about LA and Southern California is inferior. The smog, and the traffic, of course, but more generally the culture. LA people are superficial, shallow, tasteless, not nearly as deep-thinking and sophisticated as we.

Southern Californians present no corresponding disdain for SF.

I agree with Steve. Except he left out the part about THEM stealing OUR water.

If Boston has an inferiority complex regarding all things New York City, it doesn't mean they find NEW YORK CITY inferior, but themselves. Right? New York City has a superiority complex about Boston, as they find THEMSELVES superior.

Hence, the two statements you've made about San Francisco (inferiority complex) and Los Angeles (who San Francisco insists is inferior) make no sense to me.

I think so. If I remember my Psychology 101, lo those many decades ago, one with an inferiority complex secretly fears that he/she is inferior, and frequently acts upon it by overcompensating, by bragging about oneself and deprecating others.

I think so. If I remember my Psychology 101, lo those many decades ago, one with an inferiority complex secretly fears that he/she is inferior, and frequently acts upon it by overcompensating, by bragging about oneself and deprecating others.

I guess I thought that an inferiority complex meant you knew you were and even stated so, even with the overcompensation.

Even if you're correct, though, I don't think San Francisco has that inferiority complex, because I don't think any bragging is overcompensation. They think they are superior and hold no secret fear of the opposite whatsoever. (Which which I would agree.)

Back when California was in its early decades of statehood, San Francisco was THE city. Sure, the capitol was in Sacramento, but that was always a hick town. San Francisco was not only the biggest city in California, by far, but it also self-consciously cultivated a sense of great elegance and sophistication. The finest architecture, the finest art, the finest gastronomy. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, San Francisco was unquestionably the greatest city on the West coast, a rare pearl among dusty and crude boomtowns. All the while Los Angeles was a sleepy backwater, a provincial agricultural nowhere.

The terrible earthquake and fire of 1906 only increased San Francisco's sense of importance. It was energetically rebuilt to be more elegant and beautiful than ever.

But in the early decades of the 20th century, the growth of Los Angeles began to outstrip that of San Francisco. And then, with the invention of movies, Hollywood emerged as the center of fame and fortune. People came to associate the palm trees and beaches and luxurious living of Los Angeles as the essence of California, not the effete snobbery of San Franciscans.

This infuriated San Franciscans. The response ever since has been to pooh-pooh LA and all its glitzy success. Those silly, shallow dolts down there are incapable of appreciating how superior we are.

I am a native San Franciscan, and there's an old Will Rogers (who else? quote that's appropriate for this discussion: "The children of San Francisco are taught two things: to love the Lord and hate Los Angeles." It is absolutely true.

Los Angeles will never be forgiven for:

- Their weather
- Their generally superior sports teams, at least until the 80s
- Their traditionally conservative politics (at least in relation to San Francisco)
- Their usurpation of San Francisco as the West Coast's preeminent city due to the growth of Hollywood and oil, and just plain ####### having more land due to not being located on a narrow peninsula.

San Francisco regards itself as New York's equal, and that South Park joke where two San Franciscans say they're more like a European city like Paris or Milan would have been funnier had I not heard that exact sentence a few weeks earlier. Of course both assertions are utterly facetious and only remotely plausible if you count the entire Bay Area as "San Francisco", which other people in the Bay Area tend not to like. That there's a city to the south which can at least try and do this without everybody falling all over themselves laughing really rubs salt in the wound.

I hate LA. I've never even been to LA (other than a day in Pasadena once, some layovers at LAX, and the obligatory trip to Disneyland, none of which really count) and I loathe LA. I'd rather stab my eyeballs out with rusty forks than be near LA. It's utterly ridiculous yet if I ever spent a day in LA my stomach would be tied in knots at being in enemy territory and maybe, just even, liking it. It would be the most traitorous act a native San Franciscan could possibly do.

Both of my parents were Bay Area natives, and I was certainly taught to hate LA.

But over the decades I've spent lots of time in LA and the broader area, and while there are obviously plenty of problems with the place, on balance it's fascinating and wonderful and I'd have no problem living there.*

But I'm a native of San Jose, so I get away with acknowledging that. Flynn could no sooner do that than flap his arms and fly to the moon.

* I could never root for the Dodgers, of course. That would be unthinkable.

San Francisco regards itself as New York's equal, and that South Park joke where two San Franciscans say they're more like a European city like Paris or Milan would have been funnier had I not heard that exact sentence a few weeks earlier.

I remember when Willie Brown secured that for San Francisco - it was a big deal at the time. They match up pretty well, as two cities who love to tell you how great they are. Though I live in Paris's LA, and London's pretty damn self-aggrandizing too.

Throughout the second half of the 19th century, San Francisco was unquestionably the greatest city on the West coast, a rare pearl among dusty and crude boomtowns. All the while Los Angeles was a sleepy backwater, a provincial agricultural nowhere.

There's a lot of good background stuff on this in Barbara Babcock's bio of Clara Foltz ("Woman Lawyer") - how late 19th-c. San Diego, for example, made a big selling point of it when they finally put wood planks down over their main road, which had been all dirt up to then.

And SF appears to attract insecure hipster types out of the fog like a giant apple store-shaped bug light.

Indeed. Who could tell you what bands they like, but you've probably never heard of them.

I love the logic of this because it basically means anyone in the world who likes a band you haven't heard of is a hipster. Guess what? Some people are more into music than you, so stop being so damn insecure. You sound like you're 80 years old. "Wahhhh...they should only like the bands that I have heard and approved of! Damn hipsters!"

You're correct, because I kind of don't understand the logic of what you are saying at all. Basically a person is an "insecure hipster type" if they have the temerity to talk about a band that, you, Steve Treder, has never heard of. And I would say in response that there is definitely a band you, Steve Treder, like and talk about that I've never heard of, which by you're logic....makes you an insecure hipster type.

Some of you folks throw the word hipster around in the same way old sports journalists use the word "stat geeks." It's both hilariously stupid and sadly insecure...

Basically a person is an "insecure hipster type" if they have the temerity to talk about a band that, you, Steve Treder, has never heard of. And I would say in response that there is definitely a band you, Steve Treder, like and talk about that I've never heard of, which by you're logic....makes you an insecure hipster type.

No. Clearly he's implying that only a hipster would have the temerity to refuse to talk about a band because it was obscure enough not to be widely known, implying both that the appeal of their music was tied to their unknown status and that revealing their identity would cheapen the exclusivity of your insider knowledge.

Guess what? Some people are more into music than you, so stop being so damn insecure.

But the people he's talking about aren't more into music qua music; they are "more into" music _as an ideology_.

From what I've seen, hipsterism can be defined as a movement to elevate pop culture snobbery into a religion -- a crummy aspiration to begin with -- but not usually out of a true love for art so much as for its utility in separating ingroup from outgroup. In temperament it is reactionary and puritan and posturing, a concentration of every bad trait of the original 70s punks, 80-90s alt-music movement, late period con/sci-fi geekery, and creepy secret societies with none of their redeeming features. Finally, it's silly: snobbery should be left to the Sideshow Bob high culture types where it belongs.

Pop culture is _supposed_ to be democratic. But since there is literally more of it than ever before -- more than any normal person can reasonably be expected to know about, much less digest in a meaningful sense -- a weird sort of pseudo-rebellious specialization has occurred. Hipsters are the "experts" who inevitably arise with specialization in any field. Except when this dynamic has previously occurred in culture, the experts were producers themselves as well as critics, the latter partial but substantial function of whom is to extoll what is good (and why) and deprecate what is bad (and why) in the field to the general public. Yet of course one of the defining characteristics of hipsterism is its attempt to hermetically seal what is good from the general public view, to re-manufacture pop culture material as esoteric knowledge, all for the social and psychological dividend of being able to condescend to the squares.

And as for the nature of hipster knowledge, it's only about the "who". Hipster opinion on the "why" is banal and predictable, yet often revealing about them (but not about the art); and regarding the "how," most haven't a clue.